


Top and Tail

by bluejorts



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Trans Character, Trans Characters, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, i dont know i wanted this and it kinda changed, mlm author, this is solid fuckin angst, trans taaco twins, trans twins, twin stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejorts/pseuds/bluejorts
Summary: They used to joke that they were born the wrong way around.At least, it was usually a joke.





	Top and Tail

They made the joke a thousand times that they’d been born the wrong way round.

 

 When the twins were little, they would pretend to be each other to cause mischief, they were so similar looking that people didn't notice. Unless they looked at their faces and saw Lup’s upturned nose or the birthmark above Taako’s eyebrow. Or unless the twin spoke, Taako’s voice was always deeper when they were young.

 

When Lup started insisting on being called a girl, and Taako a boy, people whispered about the confusion they must have faced switching places so often. But despite the whispers, the two were allowed to be what they wanted to be, as was the elf way.

 

“Do we have different things on our bodies because we're twins?” Taako asked one day as they bathed. They had just turned five and were finally allowed alone as they washed.

 

Lup shook her head decisively. “No, it's because I'm a girl and you're a boy. I asked Mother.” 

 

Taako nodded and linked his fingers with his toes. He looked at his sister's body and felt an uncomfortable sense that he was missing something. “But they called us the wrong things when we were little.” 

 

“Some of them still call us the wrong things now.” Lup huffed, crossing her arms melodramatically. “Mother said that was because we were born with the wrong bodies.” 

 

Taako nodded again but slowly, growing more uncomfortable. “So we have each others’ bodies?” 

 

“No! This is my body… At least I think so. I think she means you have a girl body and I have a boy body.” 

 

Taako stuck his tongue out in disgust and looked down at himself, there was less sticking out than on Lup but he couldn't see much difference. Not enough to stop him from being a boy, or make her one.

 

“I don't want a girl body. I don't have a girl body! I have a me body!” 

 

Lup giggled. Taako splashed her with water, to which she retaliated of course. By the time their father checked to see what was taking them so long there was more water coating the moss on the walls of the cave than there was in the spring itself. They weren't allowed to bathe alone for a week.

 

And then of course (years later) tragedy struck, as it so often does. Their parents were gone and they left to live with their grandfather. He was kind, old, and  _ incredibly _ shortsighted. They were nine, still looked practically identical, and shared clothes. Which led to a constantly confused grandparent and the two getting in trouble for each others’ crimes.

 

“Taako?” Lup called from the bathroom at mid-afternoon on a Thursday. “Could you grab some wood for me? The basket’s almost empty.” Lup’s voice still held the accent of their hometown, upright and proper. That would change over the next few years, become more ambiguous. Everything from their upbringing left them at one point or another.

 

“Sure thing.” 

 

Wood was stored beside every fireplace in the house, and there were a good few. it was always cold. Thick, rough stone walls chilled any air that ran through them. Taako grabbed an armful of wood from the next room and staggered with it back to the bathroom, kicked the door open and dumped the logs in a pile by the fireplace.

 

“Here you go.” He panted. There was a spot on his arm where the wood had dug in and he was distracted poking at it for a moment. When he looked up at her Lup was sat on a stool next to the bath, naked but for a towel covering her legs, pumping water from the bath tap into the pot that would hang over the fire. It had been years since they'd bathed together. While they at nine years old were still toddlers by elf standards, they grew at the rate of humans, and this bath was barely big enough for one of those.

 

Taako was about to leave, as his sister wasn't paying attention to him (not even to thank him) but a bowl of black mud on the side of the bath caught his eye.

 

“What's that?” 

 

“Dye.” She didn't look at him, eyes trained on the water as it flowed in bursts with the movement of her hand on the lever

 

“Dye? What’re you doing with it?”

 

“Stuff.”

 

Everything on Taako’s face narrowed in confusion and his ears dipped slightly. Lup told him all her plans, why was she being so secretive?

 

“What kinda stuff?” The suspicion Taako was feeling came out in his words like hands, wanting to poke the information from his sister. Lup sped up her pumping the handle of the tap, sending more aggressive shots of water into the almost full pot.

 

“Just stuff. Nothing you gotta worry about.”

 

“But I am worried. Are you planning a prank Lu?” For a moment he became excited, his ears pricked up. “Are you trying to do magic again? Why didn’t you tell me - why aren’t you telling me?”

 

Lup stared more intently at the water.  The pot started to overflow. “It’s hair dye.” She snapped. 

 

“Hair..?” Taako’s voice slipped into nothing. Something cold spilled all through him. 

 

“I’m -” She finally looked at him and Taako saw water in her eyes. Her hand slipped away from the tap into her lap and she fiddled with her fingers. “I wanted to - it’s not because I’m - I just -” Her words choked each other and clogged her throat. Her mouth stayed open as if trying to force them out of her. There was a gentle quiver of her bottom lip.

 

He looked away from her. So that was it. He pushed some logs into the fire. They were cut into wedges the width of his hand and length of his forearm, he focused on that. The tips of his ears brushed his shoulders and waves ran across his vision, he ignored that. 

 

“Grandfather calls me he.” The sentence was small, like it had been compressed to squeeze past all the other words stuck in Lup’s throat. “I know he just confuses us I just- It hurts.”

 

Taako’s stomach stung. He threw another log into the fireplace and sat back on his knees. 

 

“It’s not I don’t want to look like you I - do you get it?” He pushed himself to his feet. “Tak?” 

 

There had been waves filling Taako’s eyes, but they burst from them onto the shore of his face. He turned towards his sister and nodded, chin wobbling, tongue trapped. She was crying and her nose was running and her white hair was a  _ mess _ . He looked from her to the bowl of black muck. Lup sniffed. 

 

“Where’s the - the fire? The uh, flint?” Taako’s mouth didn’t want to be used, the words flooded from his brain and were scrambled and duplicated and lost. Lup handed him a matchbox, he felt like an idiot and struck the first match too hard. It snapped. The second lit, and he grabbed a knot of old parchment to light with it. The paper burned green where there was ink and he watched that flame pass to twigs and kindling after he nestled the knot into a space in the fireplace. For once, it took immediately, kindling dry and crackling. 

 

They sat there long enough for a log to catch. Long enough for veins of black to crack through it. 

 

“Are you mad at me?” 

 

Taako’s head whipped around so fast he lost his balance. “No!” He regained himself. “I - I understand. Sometimes he calls me a she and it, yeah. You know we’re never gonna be able to do your whole head with that.”

 

“There's more in a bag by the sink. This was just the biggest bowl i could find.

 

You're still my twin, you know that right?” 

 

“Of course Lulu. I - we're always gonna be twins.” He stood up and grabbed the handle of the pot in the bath. It was insanely heavy. Lup laughed in a breath and stood up to help him. The towel fell to the floor but it wasn't like either of them cared. Together they managed to haul the pot onto the stand with the tiniest amount of water sloshing onto the floor. “How does this work, anyways?”

 

“Well I guess magic. You have to make steam though while you do it. It helps the colour soak in I think?”

 

“And you, uh, you went with black?”

 

Lup nodded and crossed her arms, shoulders awkwardly hunched. “I thought it would, ah, make us still seem like twins? But opposite.” 

 

Taako started crying again. He pounced on his twin in a tight hug. Her arms were around him as quick as his were her. She buried her face in his neck. Both of their backs heaved, tears soaked through shirt and dripped down skin. The fire slowly dripped light onto another log.

 

“So how do we do this?” Taako pulled away. One of his hands rested on Lup’s shoulder, the other wiped away tears from his cheeks and his streaming nose. 

 

“The lady said roots first on dry hair.” 

 

“Okay, let’s do this.” Taako loosened the string tightening his shirt and pulled it over his head. They ignored the puffiness of his chest. 

 

Taako started puberty in proper first. He was the younger twin, and so it came as a surprise to them when he woke up with spots of blood in his underwear. Lup tried to comfort him but he knew what it meant. He was eleven, almost twelve; he’d been so hoping that this wouldn’t happen. That whatever god was in control of their biology would have fixed it so he would never - so he wouldn’t grow up wrong. His chest had started to grow but that was easy enough to hide with baggy clothes and layers. This was - it might have been unnoticable to other people. But it would be this reminder constantly, every fucking  _ month _ that he wasn’t right.

 

He sat on his bed with his knees drawn up to his chin and tears trailing down his face, shuddering with silent sobs. 

 

Lup was saying something about magic but it just didn’t matter. She still passed. Her face was baby soft and her voice was the same as it had always been. She was even still slightly shorter than him. Anyone would think she was younger, that they were  _ sisters _ , not even twins. Her hair was thick and black and the same length as his. Something ached in his chest. She kissed his forehead and told him she was going to get their grandfather. He stared at the wall and heard her leave. 

 

An urge tugged at him, he fought it for just a minute and then scrambled off the bed and out of the room to lock himself in the bathroom. There were scissors in here somewhere, or a knife. A knife would work too. 

 

He looked at his reflection, his eyes were red and swollen, his nose had grown two sizes from crying. His hair was everywhere. Thick and curly and white and  _ long _ . His hands shook and he opened the drawer under the sink. There were scissors in there, large and silver and sharp.

 

He cut haphazardly at first, grabbing fistfuls and shearing through it quickly. Hair fell quicker than his tears, which started slowing. His breathing became less erratic, his cutting less angry. He cut the final clump of hair that was down to his waist and dropped the scissors in the sink. His reflection looked terrible, some parts of the hair reached halfway to his shoulder, while others only just grazed his chin. He sighed and picked up the scissors again. 

 

“Taako? Are you in there?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Grandfather’s got stuff for you.”

 

“It’s okay kiddo, I had to go through this when your mother grew up.” Taako loved his grandfather, he loved his sister. He wasn’t sure he could handle their laughter when they saw him like this. But he unlocked the door and opened it. He didn’t meet their eyes, just stared at the floor. “Hm, now I haven’t got my glasses on but it looks like someone’s needing help with a haircut.”

 

“I’ll go get them.” Lup offered. She didn’t sound like she was laughing. Taako sniffled and looked up. Lup had just started to walk off, she was frowning. His grandfather was smiling gently.

 

“Lets sit down shall we?” He offered, placing a hand on Taako’s shoulder. Taako allowed his grandfather to sit him on a stool which he pushed with Taako seated to in front of the mirror. “Now, once Lu’s got my glasses we’ll take a look at this shall we? How short are we thinking tyke?”

 

“I don’t know.” Taako hadn’t spoken yet that day other than to answer Lup in one word and his voice was croaky. “I just wanted to - to look like a boy.”

 

“Well see, that’s not an easy request.” Taako’s heart broke slightly. “You are a boy, so you already look like one! Long hair or short.”

 

“But I want people to automatically think I’m a boy.”

 

“Ah, see there I can help.” Lup strode back in and handed over the glasses. Her eyes were slightly red. She came to stand next to Taako and he took her hand. “Grab a seat there Lu, I want you to tell me whether you think I’m doing a good job.” She nodded and retrieved another stool from the study next door, it was shorter than the one Taako was sat on so she was a good head below him. She reached out and took his hand again, laced their fingers together. 

 

Their grandfather fluffed up Taako’s hair, running his fingers through the curls and shaking them. White strands drifted to the floor and he hummed. “Right now. Let’s see. How about we cut it close around your neck and leave it a little long on top. Or how about a mohawk?” 

 

Taako’s eyes widened. He shook his head.

 

“Not a fan of the mohawk?”

 

“It’s too - too extreme.” When he was older he would look back on this and laugh, or at least when he could remember it. 

 

“Alright then, how about the other option. I can leave these curls up here and trim in real close around the sides.” He was ruffling different bits of hair and Taako just nodded. There was a part of him that regretted this. He’d loved his long hair. Lup would braid it and he could pretend he had a beard if he wanted to. He closed his eyes and held his sister’s hand tightly for the duration of the cut. The scissors were cold, and very close to the nape of his neck at points. 

 

“You can open your eyes now tot.” His grandfather brushed off his shoulders with firm pats of his hands. Taako did so. He saw, in the mirror, himself. His hair was gone. It was cut incredibly close on the sides, but the fringe of hair he always had hung over his forehead. It didn't look bad just. Different. He looked like a normal boy. “Everything okay? You like it.” His grandfather seemed nervous which was unusual. He was a burly, proper man. 

 

Taako nodded, sprung up, kicked the stool away and wrapped his arms around his grandfather. He started crying again into his chest. 

 

“Oh come on now, stop crying. It's just all the hormones running through you right now. What you need is some food and to sit in bed with a book.” Taako again nodded and grinned up at the old man. There was white hair covering the both of them.

 

Taako and Lup turned twelve. Their birthday was celebrated to the fullest by the three of them. They lived miles away from New Elfington now, and the closest thing they got to birthday wishes from their old friends was letters either a week early or a week late. Lup was gifted from their aunt a summer dress patterned with lavender and red mimulus and Taako a mint cloak (which matched literally nothing of his and so he never wore). Their grandfather gave them both wizard’s hats. Taako’s with a moon hanging from the tip, and Lup’s a sun. 

 

And their grandfather died. Bluntly as the day ends. He passed in his sleep from an illness that nobody bothered to explain to the twins. In what felt like a tsunami of legalities and confusion, the twins were not sent to other family members but washed up and left out on the streets. Their grandfather owned - or had owned - a large manor house in practically the middle of nowhere. They weren't taken away from it, but the house was put on the market and the twins were locked out. 

 

They caught a wagon. Snuck in and hid in sacks meant for potatoes until they were discovered and thrown to the curb. They convinced a group of ruffian travellers to let them tag along in return for a satchel of potatoes they’d managed to steal. And that was that. 

 

Lup hit puberty around the time they started experimenting with magic. She grew a foot and a half. Her voice cracked and Taako occasionally had to speak for her when it made her feel particularly bad. 

 

But they found a spell that could reverse it. It was a ritual and it took a month to find the ingredients for it. Lup spent nights panicking that they wouldn't find everything before her voice was deep permanently. And it was way above their magic level. But they wanted to try. 

 

The ruffians they were travelling with at that time weren't the sweetest. Some of them used the wrong pronouns on the twins, who pretended it didn't matter so as not to be a nuisance. Some of them didn't even learn that they were different genders. They opted to call them ‘it' when referring to one alone. They claimed that since they looked alike it didn't make a difference. Lup hadn't been able to dye her hair in over a year, and Taako hadn't cut his in a while. He had begun to shave the side rather than cutting it short but these people weren't keen on giving him knives so he hadn't had the chance.

 

The ritual took all afternoon and all the energy from both of them to cast. But it worked. Taako woke up while it was still dark, spooning his sister, having passed out practically the moment they had finished the spell.

 

“Lup. Lup you're crushing my arm wake up.” Taako groaned, trying to pull his arm out from underneath her. She was hugging it to her chest, and in his attempt at regaining it he simply turned his sister from her side to her stomach.

 

“Dude what the hell.” She groaned. Taako froze. “I was having a really good dream.” Her voice was high. On par with his. “Holy shit.” She seemed to realise too. 

 

“It worked!” Taako laughed. “Do you feel okay? Any side effects?” 

 

“My shoulder hurts like something else but no. Not that I can tell.” 

 

“Hell yes! Hell fuckin’ yes!” Taako whipped his arm away from her and punched the air in ecstatic energy. 

 

“ _ Would you two keep it the fuck down over there? Else we'll leave you behind! _ ”

 

“Why are you so excited? It's my voice bro.” She poked him in the side.

 

“Yeah, and this’ll make you happier! You won't feel crappy about it!” He met her eyes and her grin spread to level with his. “And if this works then that means if there's - if there's other magic like this we could. We could be normal.” 

 

Lup pulled him on top of her into an incredibly tight hug. “We are normal Tak. Just a different kind of normal.” 

 

He laughed at that and buried his face in her neck. His heart swelled at the idea of there being other magic. 

 

But the first thing they found to help Taako in his transition wasn't magical. It was in the window of a store in a city they were passing through, marketed as a compression ring for the stomach. In diagrams it showed a stout dwarf man don the garment to make his stomach smaller. He wouldn't even have noticed it unless Lup had remarked how dangerous it must be. 

 

He stared at it for a solid minute, hand on chest. He was that much stupefied by the possibility that he didn't notice his sister wander off until she came back again. 

 

“Why are you still here? C’mon, they're selling candy apples over by the statue.” 

 

“But -” They were in their second year of magic school, just turned twenty six. They didn't have solid jobs, it was the first time in months that they had money to spend (a hundred each). And the compressor was sixty gold. But if there was the  _ chance _ that it would flatten him. “Can we go in here first?” 

 

“For the compression tube? Taako you don't need that, you're smaller than me!” 

 

“Not for my stomach, for my- you know.” 

 

“Your..?  _ Oh _ . Right, yeah! Do you really think it’d work?” 

 

“It's worth a try.” 

 

The shopkeeper looked surprised at his purchase, but evidently didn't care why he was buying it as long as he was handing over gold. Taako dragged Lup into an alley and made her hold a jacket up to keep him from prying eyes while he changed. 

 

The tube was a ring of thick mesh material. And for once he was thankful that he’d had to be measured for the school uniform. Because he had a feeling that guessing measurements and getting this in the wrong size would hurt. He slipped it over his head and one arm, paused to breathe in, and wriggled the rest of the way into it. At first he felt a sharp, cold drop in his stomach from disappointment. The ring had pushed his chest down, sure, but just so that it was a lower bump, and his skin ached. He almost started crying, and forced his hand inside to see if he could readjust. He pushed the fat upwards and pulled his hand out again. 

 

He really did start crying when he realised that it had worked, his chest looked flatter. He adjusted and readjusted for five minutes, pushing flesh to and away from his armpit so that he had some semblance of a male chest and not too much fat spilling out near his underarm.

 

“Taako c’mon! All the apples will be gone.” 

 

He rolled his eyes so high they strained. “I'm done. Don't put the jacket down just - look.” He turned so that he was side on and watched his sister's reaction. She at first went slack jawed, and then started grinning like a crazy woman. She threw the jacket at him and he caught it with a glare. Her hug was even more of a shock, she pinned his arms to his sides and lifted him from the ground. She was half a foot taller than him (which hurt to think about for the both of them) so it was easy for her to do. He yelped and kicked her in the shin automatically. Naturally she dropped him, but he was ready for it and landed on his feet, stumbling backwards slightly. 

 

“What was that for?” 

 

“You surprised me!” 

 

“Sorry, I just got excited.” 

 

Taako rolled his eyes and fought back a smile. “Why are you excited bucko? It’s my chest.”

 

“Because now you can buy nicer clothes. Don't lie to me, you hate baggy shirts. And besides,” She ruffled his hair. “We’re one more step towards normal.” 

 

“We're never gonna be normal. I'm fine as we are.” Taako snorted. “And stop babying me. I'm still older than you.” 

 

“By like, a few minutes!” 

 

“A few minutes that you weren't alive.” 

 

The argument was one they’d had a trillion times, lighthearted as it was. They kept at it as they walked off into town (there were apples left, and they only cost a few bronze). 

 

They argued constantly. They were twins, of course they did. You don't live with someone for thirty odd years without arguing, especially not your sibling. But they hardly ever argued so badly.

 

“Lup, where’d you put my binder?” 

 

“Why would I take your binder?” 

 

They’d been short with each other since they’d woken up. They had overslept, and the group they’d been travelling with had left without waking them. So of course they blamed each other. 

 

Lup was still lying down. She had packed everything of hers aside from her sleep mat.

 

“I don’t know, but you did.” Taako had packed as well, but his binder was nowhere to be found.

 

“Maybe you left it in a wagon.” 

 

“Oh yeah, of course. Because I definitely took it off in the fucking wagon.”

 

“Well I don't know? You might have?” 

 

“Can you just get up and tell me where you put it, jackass.”

 

“I already told you; I don't know where it is. Just don't wear it. We need to get moving anyways.” 

 

“I can't just not wear it! You know I can't!”

 

“Why not?” 

 

“Don’t be a prick Lulu.” 

 

“Don't fucking call me that Taako. Just don't. It’s not my fault you lost it. And it's not my fault you don't appreciate what you have!” 

 

He went to kick her, but decided against it at the last second, stamping down on the ground next to her foot hard. He looked like a child throwing a tantrum. Right in front of his sister who was so  _ fucking  _ tall compared to him. 

 

“If you don’t shut the fuck up I’m gonna fucking kick you in the dick  _ sis _ .” 

 

“Oh fuck off.”

 

“What? So you're allowed to tell me to appreciate my shitty body but I can't talk about your dick?”

 

“Gods, why are you being such a cockgoblin?”

 

“Because you stole my binder!”

 

“No I didn't!” 

 

“What, you get so jealous of my damn chest that you couldn't let me hide it? Or do you just want me to feel like shit?” 

 

“I didn't steal your fucking binder! Why would I do that? Unlike  _ you  _ I don’t steal everything I see!”

 

“Oh yeah? Well why are you being a bitch about my chest then?”

 

“I'm - just shut up!”

 

“No! I won’t fucking shut up! You know what, you're the one who doesn't appreciate what you have! Look at you jackass! You have the perfect fucking body! I'd do  _ anything  _ to look like you! You don't deserve it because you're a whiny bitch about it!”

 

“Oh  _ I'm  _ a whiny bitch? Remind me what happens every time you get your period.” She bent over so that her face was level with his, clapping both hands to her cheeks. “ _ Oh Lup get me some medicine I feel teeerible. _ ”

 

“Oh my fucking god, you don’t deserve to he a girl.” He fumed, leaning in so they were nose to nose. His body was rigid and his fists shook. “Why are you always such an asshole?”

 

“Why are you such a little bitch?”

 

“God sometimes I fucking hate you. I’m going to find a ride. Don’t even bother coming with me.”

 

“Why would I fucking want to?” 

 

Taako turned around, grabbed his pack off the ground, and walked away. He stormed down the hill and dropped his stuff and himself in a pile beside a dirt track. His heart was pounding, his eyes felt about to burst. It took a few minutes for his shaking to subside, and half an hour for his sister to join him.

 

Lup sat a foot away from him. He didn't look at her. The quiet had been alright until then, almost pleasant. But with Lup the air was thick with unsaid words. 

 

“I'm sorry for being a dick. I know you wouldn't steal my binder.” He broke.

 

“I'm sorry for what I said. It was - really fucking nasty.”

 

“It's okay. I shouldn't have said what I did either.”

 

The quiet had apparently decided to take their words back. And that was okay. They could finish the conversation later.

 

Did they? Was that conversation..? What conversation?

 

Taako’s head felt fuzzy, like someone had filled his skull with spun sugar and picked cotton. Lup would do that if she could, he was sure of it. But her speciality wasn't conjuration it was… 

 

Where was Lup? 

 

And where was - that other guy, the one with the - the short one? What? The - he was always with her? With - who was with her? With Lup?

 

Who was Lup? 

 

Taako’s memories slipped away from him slowly, as if the voidfish couldn't take them all at once, as if there were too many (it was ever so young). 

 

First left a hundred years of his life. It went in ten seconds. The backs of his eyelids acted as movie screens that played the reel of the memory from his mind then took it and burned it. 

He started crying. However many years of his life before the IPRE were played and picked in front of him. His sister never lived with him and his grandaddy on a farm where he learned to make butter. His sister wasn't there when his aunt taught him to cook. It must have been her nose he blew flour into. His sister wasn't there on the streets with him; he had such a lonely childhood. 

 

He was always so alone. 

 

His sister wasn't there when his parents died. When he was orphaned and left so fucking alone.

 

His sister wasn't there when he had night terrors so bad he woke his father up from the man's deepest sleep. She wasn't there holding his sleeve while his father rocked his bed and didn't touch him too much (so as not to overwhelm him) and she didn't kiss him on the forehead and tell him it was okay to go back to sleep like some kind of three year old mother in training when his father went back to bed. 

 

She wasn't there when he told his parents he wasn't a ‘she'. He had nobody to hold his hand and make a statement alongside him. He was alone and afraid and uncomfortable and worried about being called the wrong thing forever. People whispered, and sometimes the whispers didn't make sense. And he had nobody there to tell him that the talking didn't matter, that the only thing that mattered was them loving each other. Because who was ‘them' he was a he and he was  _ alone _ . 

 

She wasn't there when he was born. He was born at four twenty in the morning, and ten minutes later there was nobody lying beside him screaming their lungs out in tuneless synchrony. 

 

Who was she? 

 

He forgot her face last. A face he shouldn't have been able to forget. It was so similar to his. With an upturned nose and a scar on her cheek. He’d seen that face in almost every way possible. He’d seen all of her emotions, every expression that the emotions could force her face into. He’d kissed her. He’d kissed every inch of that face at one point or another. 

 

But he hadn't. It had never happened.

 

Merle stood on his shoulders, reaching up to get something or other from the ‘medicine’ shelf because Killian had bet Carey she would be fine jumping off of the Fantasy Costco because she knew the right roll (she had actually been mostly okay, but her shoulder had dislocated and her side was bruised to hell). This was an annoyingly common occurrence, because Merle refused to keep his things lower down. 

 

“I should be the tall one here.” He grumbled, pushing aside bottles that sounded glass. 

 

“Seems like we were born the wrong way round compadre.” Taako shrugged, throwing his friend’s balance off and almost accidentally sending Merle to the ground.

 

“Seems fuckin’ likely.” 

 

There was a fuzziness in Taako’s gut. He felt like there should have been a different response. He ignored it and, later, he forgot about it.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @ homoeroticmoose


End file.
